Crowd Control/Heroic Surge Feedback

[Borror0]

I agree with other posters that this would be easier to brainstorm if we knew specifically the issue the devs were trying to resolve as an end result.

They said so in the release notes...

[Aashrym]

Two complete different problems, though I agree than affordable respecs mechanisms are needed.

If a player makes characters without fully understanding game play and falls victim to CC effects repeatedly this would directly affect that player's ability to correct the build. Either:

1) Mob CC is an issue for players.
2) Mob CC is not an issue for players.

If #1 is true then a mechanism can be developed to resolve this issue. If #2 is true then providing a mechanism to break CC (like heroic surge) was pointless to give to players in the first place. Since herioc surge was given to players in the first place it would appear the devs saw and issue with #1 and chose to proceed with a mechanism.

Even if it was solely problem of poor build construction, respec mechanisms would not address the problem alone. You would need to add ways to help players figuring how to increase their saves without gimping themselves, either. That's certainly not an easy task. While some people can build a solid DDO character in 5 minutes or on the fly, others might as well spend an hour in front of the screen and not be able to make something half as good.

Ways like forums, wikis, help menus, advice chats, and guildies? I think those already exist and new players may need to use them more.

Maybe we could find more ways to promote existing methods for help to new players.

That would greatly hurt groups with high survivability but lesser DPS.

When you say 'that' I'm not entirely sure what 'that' you are refering to in your statements. It looks like you are refering to the respec system in the discussion. Getting help and respeccing a character to something better or more playable can only help a party, not hurt it.

And if you are saying survivability but lesser DPS hurts a group I disagree strongly. DPS is great and all but it won't get you through a quest if you are dead. Survival with less damage is survival. DPS without survivability results in failure.

[Borror0]

If a player makes characters without fully understanding game play and falls victim to CC effects repeatedly this would directly affect that player's ability to correct the build.

Even well-built characters can be affected by the problem the developers are trying to correct. Therefore, affordable respec mechanisms would not solve the problem that Heroic Surge was intended to correct which is why I said it's a different problem.

Ways like forums, wikis, help menus, advice chats, and guildies?

No. Of those, only advice chats can be expected to be used (and even that's a large assumption that will be false in many cases) by the target audience and they don't offer the kind of thorough information you would want them to learn.

When you say 'that' I'm not entirely sure what 'that' you are refering to in your statements.

I'm referring to what is said in passage I quoted. That's the function of a quote on an Internet forum. You should know that, since you use them.

And if you are saying survivability but lesser DPS hurts a group I disagree strongly.

No. That's not what I was saying

[Aashrym]

They said so in the release notes...

Really?

The quote from the release notes on cc and heroic surge is below. The only thing in there that shows any motive is the first paragraph after Crowd Control and Spell Improvements.

If that is the motive why give heroic surge to mobs at all and what is this nonsense you keep bringing up about the devs needing to cut back on players CC'ing mobs for better game play? The only thing listed is the effect mobs have on players, not vice-versa.

Crowd Control Improvements

Many changes have been made to make crowd control effects against players more friendly for real-time combat. For a full description of the changes, and details on the spells that have been updated, please see the Spells section of these release notes!

Spells

General Changes

* Wall of Fire and Blade Barrier, when cast by monsters, now have a different appearance from "friendly" Walls of Fire and Blade Barriers. In PvP, Team 2 uses these monster FX.
* Mummy Rot's description now explicitly says that it must be cured as both a curse and a disease.
* Chain Lightning has been fixed to affect multiple enemies... no, seriously!
* Removable curses that reduce or prevent positive energy healing now display a different (brighter) curse effect on a target, making it easier to differentiate between run-of-the-mill curses and healing preventing curses.

Summoned Monster changes

* Summon Monster spells no longer have exceptionally long cooldown timers.
* Summoned creatures now persist for 10 minutes and will teleport to their master if they are not currently in combat and their master is distant from them.
* Summoning a second creature will banish your first creature back to its home plane.

Crowd Control & Spell Improvements

Some monsters regularly end up on players' “most hated” lists, and these usually include our good friends the Air Elementals, Wolves or Worgs, and other monsters that have repeated effects that prevent players from acting. In Update Three, several changes are being made to reduce these frustrating experiences.
Heroic Surge

This new effect provides a brief period of immunity from crowd control once you escape. When a target is crowd controlled, a counter will increment for each second that they cannot act. Once the counter reaches the critical point (i.e. you've been made helpless too long) the crowd controlling effect will be dispelled. This allows players the opportunity to break free and defend themselves before the next onslaught rather than being completely helpless while monsters spam them with effects repeatedly. During a heroic surge, you are protected from being crowd controlled. The duration of the heroic surge is random. Once the heroic surge has ended, you will once again be subjected to the monsters' crowd control effects. Monsters are also able to have heroic surges, but the criteria is more difficult for the monster, and is scaled based on quest difficulty (the tougher the difficulty, the more opportunity the Monster will have for a heroic surge).
Spell-change Overview

Other changes have been made to crowd control spells, permanent negative effects/spells, debuffs and offensive spells:

* The exact same crowd control effects cannot be re-applied to players while they are currently active.
o If you’re currently tripped by a worg, it cannot reapply the trip effect to you (resetting the timer) until after you get back up. Similarly, if you’re mind blasted by a mind flayer, other mind blasts will have no effect on you.
o Note that different effects can still be applied, so you can be tripped, then stunned, then held, but not chain tripped without ever having a chance to act.
o This does not apply to monsters.
* Lengthy crowd control effects that did not have one before now possess a chance for reoccurring saves for players.
o The duration between repeated saves has been reduced on many effects for players. (Usually to half the monster’s interval.)
* Several spells have been changed to provide a greater benefit to the player when they first gain access to casting the spell.

Specific Spell Changes

* The following spells/effects are no longer permanent. They now last 60 seconds base, and 20 seconds per level; the effects have a diminished duration on players.
o Curse
o Symbol of Weakness
o Mummy Curse

* The following spells have been front-loaded to be more useful at lower levels. These spells now have a base duration of 60 seconds, gaining 3 seconds per level, as opposed to just a few seconds per level:
o Fireshield
o Prayer
o Recitation

* The following spells are no longer permanent for players or monsters. Both players and monsters enjoy reoccurring saves against this effect, though players get saves more frequently. The spells now last 60 seconds plus 10 per caster level. The effects have a diminished duration on players.
o Feeblemind
o Flesh to Stone

* The following spells/effects now have reoccurring saves and diminished duration against players:
o Cause Fear
o Scare
o Hypnotic Pattern
o Greater Command
o Sleep
o Symbol of Stunning
o Symbol of Fear
o Paralyzing
o Several colors in the Prismatic Spray color wheel
o Blasphemy
o Otto's Resistible Dance
o Otto's Irresistible Dance (now with less Ir!)
o Halt Undead (ahem, yes, against certain players)
o Chill touch (just to be on the safe side - you never know!)
o Vampire Domination
o Ice Flenser Poison
o Jarilith Fearful Presence
o Lich Paralysis
o Gelatinous Cube Paralysis (he has a sad now)
o Idyllic Touch
o Mind Blast from Mind Flayers
+ Now has a diminished duration against players. Stand there too long, though, and he's still gonna eat your brains.
* The following spells/effects now have a diminished duration against players:
o Hold Person
o Hold Monster (hey to them, you're a Monster)
o Hold Animal (just in case!)
o Snare (the spell, not the trap)
+ Now has a max duration of 60 seconds
o Beholder Petrification
o Earth Elemental Petrification
o Change of Heart
* Other Spells
o Touch of Idiocy
+ Touch of Idiocy now has a duration of 60 seconds plus 30 seconds per caster level with a reduced duration against players.
o Hypnotism
+ Hypnotism had its duration increased slightly. Its duration against players has been reduced. Players get a reoccurring save while under the effects of hypnotism.
o Ghoul Touch
+ Ghoul Touch now has a reoccurring save, but a duration that scales better with level.
+ Ghoul Touch will now cause enemies near the afflicted target to become sickened.

[Aashrym]

No. Of those, only advice chats can be expected to be used (and even that's a large assumption that will be false in many cases) by the target audience and they don't offer the kind of thorough information you would want them to learn.

I'm referring to what is said in passage I quoted. That's the function of a quote on an Internet forum. You should know that, since you use them.

Forums are full of build information and advice. I wouldn't dismiss them so quickly.

And your passage you quoted had a few items which you added the pronoun 'that' which could have applied to a few things. Things I quoted back.

That's a function of good grammar. Off topic, but I'm sure you've heard if it. :-))

[Kemoc]

And if you are saying survivability but lesser DPS hurts a group I disagree strongly. DPS is great and all but it won't get you through a quest if you are dead. Survival with less damage is survival. DPS without survivability results in failure.

And I might add, Dead = 0 dps.

[Borror0]

The only thing in there that shows any motive is the first paragraph after Crowd Control and Spell Improvements.

"This allows players the opportunity to break free and defend themselves before the next onslaught rather than being completely helpless while monsters spam them with effects repeatedly."

If that is the motive why give heroic surge to mobs at all and what is this nonsense you keep bringing up about the devs needing to cut back on players CC'ing mobs for better game play? The only thing listed is the effect mobs have on players, not vice-versa.

That goal is the only one not stated, but it's pretty easy to infer what it was. Since the effect has "Heroic" in the name, it was most likely built for players first (as Heroic is usually kept to mean a player-only bonus) and then extended to monsters when developers saw an opportunity to kill two bird with one stone: CC effects don't need to last three minutes and in fact lowering their duration would improve gameplay.

I have been saying that for several pages now.

As for labeling this as nonsense, it is not. Decreasing the predictability of combat and increasing the number of decisions a player has to make during gameplay - which is what lower CC duration would do - makes gameplay more varied and engaging. This is something generally true, as known by all game designers.

Additionally, you might be interested to read the guidelines of the forums you're participating to. Calling others' statement nonsense is prohibited.

[Borror0]

Forums are full of build information and advice. I wouldn't dismiss them so quickly.

I didn't dismiss them. I said that the majority target audience wouldn't read them.

And your passage you quoted had a few items

No. It had only one idea of quoted.

[Xyfiel]

I don't agree that lowering CC durations improve gameplay Borror. I find it just the opposite. In fact, I believe the majority of players don't agree to it. Want proof? Read all the posts here disagreeing to this concept.

I do not spend every encounter in DDO with the mobs dying before current CC wears off. Lowering of CC duration also results in less customization in builds. No longer will CC be mana efficient, and it further promotes the dps/heal mindset, which is already too prevailant in this game.

Books and articles on game theories are just that, theories. Nor do theroies about other games apply directly to a DnD game. We already have a game with established and balanced rules, that only need minor adjustments for a MMO setting. We don't need a complete changing of rules.

Lets get past all the smoke and mirrors for a moment. The real reasons for this change are to prevent long term CC in quests the devs don't want us to have that option and to make the game easier on players who don't understand or want to spend the time to learn DnD mechanics. There are other options available for both of these, and that don't remove us from core DnD. Being it still says DnD on the box, I would like to keep it that way as much as possible. Changing CC duration is not needed. There are other ways to accomplish both goals.

There is plenty of info on this game and how it works, especially in the hints. Too bad most players turn it off. Should the game info be improved upon? Of course, it is lacking. Is changing whole game mechanics based on poor documentation and player laziness a good tradeoff? How about we fix those issues, and leave the game mechanics alone.

[Auran82]

"This allows players the opportunity to break free and defend themselves before the next onslaught rather than being completely helpless while monsters spam them with effects repeatedly."

What I dont understand is that if that was the goal, why not just:

a) Put monster abilities like trip, whatever air elementals do etc on a timer so they cannot spam it, make the timer a couple of second longer than the effect itself.

b) Make it so that if you are tripped/held/stunned the affect cannot be reapplied until the current one wears off, but if another enemy tries to use the ability again, they still go onto the timer.

[Borror0]

I don't agree that lowering CC durations improve gameplay Borror. I find it just the opposite.

Look. It's a simple principle: if gameplay requires too little brain activity from the player it's boring and repeating the same chunks of gameplay is too easy. It should be pretty intuitive to you, think of Shroud portals or Harry in part 5. Both of those are extremely easy on melee characters because they only require to hold your right mouse button and move once in a while.

By introducing unpredictability, you make the experience less redundant and more engaging.

Want proof? Read all the posts here disagreeing to this concept.

Forums are a very bad way to measure whether something is sound game design. A lot of players react to "ZOMG IT'S A NERF" more than they will react to how fun it is. The simple fact that there is a need to explain the importance of game balance, why nerfing is necessary or why incentives are important or the fact that people use the term "dumbing down" should be indicatives that a large number of forum posters are not great game designers...

No longer will CC be mana efficient

That's unfounded; if it takes two CC spells for a whole fight versus five damage spells, CC is still more efficient.

[...] on players who don't understand or want to spend the time to learn DnD mechanics.

That's not an accurate description of the target demographic.

What I dont understand is that if that was the goal, why not just:

a) Put monster abilities like trip, whatever air elementals do etc on a timer so they cannot spam it, make the timer a couple of second longer than the effect itself.

b) Make it so that if you are tripped/held/stunned the affect cannot be reapplied until the current one wears off, but if another enemy tries to use the ability again, they still go onto the timer.

a) You want monsters to try to trip several players within that span of time, but the number of players to attack at once varied with the group's size. As a result, the smaller group end up being exposed to far more CC than they should be if the developers set the cooldown for larger groups.

b) They did the first part of your sentence. They obviously didn't do the second part, though, since it is contingent with a) being done.

[moorewr]

My suggestion:

1) give everyone starting at level 1:
Heroic Surge
Cooldown 5 minutes
Upon entering Heroic Surge, all debilitating effects are removed from your character, and for the next 15 seconds you are immune to debilitating effects.

This actually gives you a decent buff and enough time to kill the problem or to get away. It removes the "by the time the surge goes off I will be dead anyway" problem. It also still validates having saves and the ability to block/remove effects. It puts the control of the situation back into the players control. It can also be used in some end fights though, say Thrall of the necromancer. I think in the case that you can become immune for an end fight isn't that common because if it lasts that shortly you probably didn't need the surge to begin with.

2) adjust raids/quests as needed
make the Tod orthons at the last fight rednamed. You did it for DQ. Stop inventing new stuff when there are already ways to "correct" the problem. I don't think this is the best overall course to take, but one I have already lived with, and one that doesn't completly change gameplay. How many quests is long term CC really an issue?

I like this a lot.. sort of a DDO version of "Phone a Friend."

[Xyfiel]

Look. It's a simple principle: if gameplay requires too little brain activity from the player it's boring and repeating the same chunks of gameplay is too easy. It should be pretty intuitive to you, think of Shroud portals or Harry in part 5. Both of those are extremely easy on melee characters because they only require to hold your right mouse button and move once in a while.

I understand the concept that CC on a target removes it from thought for awhile, for some people. I watch my CC to see if anything breaks, to be on the ball if it does. To me this promotes just as much thought. Have you considered that ineffective CC makes the game even less thought invoking since there are less options? You say that under 30 second CC works better, but to the average DDO player, is it? If my CC only works for X number of seconds, and I could have thrown a nuke spell to get aggro and kited them until the melee are ready to engage, why would I use CC? Another option is switching to insta kill spec, or going all out and switching to a melee character. Won't have to worry about having to cast more spells then I currently do, trying to be persuaded by programming changes to purchase mana pots in the store. I understand your theory, I just disagree that this accomplishes more thought.

By introducing unpredictability, you make the experience less redundant and more engaging.

If the devs want to give more unpredictability, stop giving mobs millions of hps and static immunities. That is the real brain killer. Making us switch to dps/healing. Swing swing swing, mass heal, mass heal. Why don't you spend some of your excessive posting ability on those issues.

Forums are a very bad way to measure whether something is sound game design. A lot of players react to "ZOMG IT'S A NERF" more than they will react to how fun it is. The simple fact that there is a need to explain the importance of game balance, why nerfing is necessary or why incentives are important or the fact that people use the term "dumbing down" should be indicatives that a large number of forum posters are not great game designers...

yes but we pay for those game designers. I am not saying I pay my x$ dollars and expect personal treatment. I am saying that if you implement something that people disagree with, expect less income. Forums are a good way to get a first response from a change. Are you telling me that of all of us who dislike this that we are all ********/self absorbed/antinerf players? You know that some of us can think rationally and have good inputs on the matter. Stop being dense, you know there is good feedback in this thread. If you truly believe what you posted, you should stop commenting on game design on the forums, for it is a bad measurement afterall.

That's unfounded; if it takes two CC spells for a whole fight versus five damage spells, CC is still more efficient.

Tell me when this applies. Insta kill/nuke speccing will be more powerful then cc speccing. Why spend time CC when you can kill it? The only time CC is more beneficial is when you need more time for the melee to kill stuff because the other options are not available or not efficient. Now consider the change, it doesn't give you much more time. So if insta kill is unavailable, CC is shortlived, nuking becomes the best option.

That's not an accurate description of the target demographic.

It's not? And you know this how? You are at Turbine meetings lokoing at the whiteboard list of things to do disussing the target demographic? So all of these other changes were not implemented due to lack of DnD knowledge and how hard it was to learn to play the game? Sure you read the same reviews I did for DDO?

[ApesAmongUs]

The real reasons for this change are to prevent long term CC in quests the devs don't want us to have that option and to make the game easier on players who don't understand or want to spend the time to learn DnD mechanics.

Air elemental and dog/worg knockdown do not represent D&D mechanics. They don't even vaguely resemble D&D mechanics.

[Xyfiel]

Borror0 Summary:



Id love to say that was a snapshot summary of all of borror0s posts in this thread, but sadly that was just a summary of ONE POST!

He will carry this on 400 pages folks. My advice? Dont even respond.

Oh but come Feb 1st, I have a month off. I need to move the frig closer to the couch and get ready for Borror vs Xyfiel Round 2. Please see Kensai Thread for round 1.
I may not change his mind, but I will contradict his posts enough that the reader will see it for what it is, zealotry.

[LeslieWest_GuitarGod]

Oh but come Feb 1st, I have a month off. I need to move the frig closer to the couch and get ready for Borror vs Xyfiel Round 2. Please see Kensai Thread for round 1.
I may not change his mind, but I will contradict his posts enough that the reader will see it for what it is, zealotry.

LOL Good enough.... getting my bag of popcorn ready...

[Junts]

I don't agree that lowering CC durations improve gameplay Borror. I find it just the opposite. In fact, I believe the majority of players don't agree to it. Want proof? Read all the posts here disagreeing to this concept.

I do not spend every encounter in DDO with the mobs dying before current CC wears off. Lowering of CC duration also results in less customization in builds. No longer will CC be mana efficient, and it further promotes the dps/heal mindset, which is already too prevailant in this game.

Books and articles on game theories are just that, theories. Nor do theroies about other games apply directly to a DnD game. We already have a game with established and balanced rules, that only need minor adjustments for a MMO setting. We don't need a complete changing of rules.

Lets get past all the smoke and mirrors for a moment. The real reasons for this change are to prevent long term CC in quests the devs don't want us to have that option and to make the game easier on players who don't understand or want to spend the time to learn DnD mechanics. There are other options available for both of these, and that don't remove us from core DnD. Being it still says DnD on the box, I would like to keep it that way as much as possible. Changing CC duration is not needed. There are other ways to accomplish both goals.

There is plenty of info on this game and how it works, especially in the hints. Too bad most players turn it off. Should the game info be improved upon? Of course, it is lacking. Is changing whole game mechanics based on poor documentation and player laziness a good tradeoff? How about we fix those issues, and leave the game mechanics alone.

Please name a non-flesh to stone form of crowd control that will routinely hit non-epic heroic surge timers (60 second duration).

There isn't any.

Epic is 30 seconds, so spam irresistable dance might overlap into it occaisionally. Everything else has 3-5 saves in 30 seconds, and on epic that means its not lasting the full duration.

What are you crusading against? the inability to lock level 10 mobs in a dancing ball for a minute? You still can. We don't have any CC that lasts long enough to routinely trip heroic surge.

[Xyfiel]

Please name a non-flesh to stone form of crowd control that will routinely hit non-epic heroic surge timers (60 second duration).

There isn't any.

Epic is 30 seconds, so spam irresistable dance might overlap into it occaisionally. Everything else has 3-5 saves in 30 seconds, and on epic that means its not lasting the full duration.

What are you crusading against? the inability to lock level 10 mobs in a dancing ball for a minute? You still can. We don't have any CC that lasts long enough to routinely trip heroic surge.

For your regular gaming, no you don't see this. In my gaming, 1+ min cc is common enough. Elite powergamers won't notice much difference, because they have the dps. Bring yourself into an average pug in an average quest with average gear, then you can see real CC.

But to please you:
Prismatic Spray/ray
Fts
Fascinate/enthrall
Charm person
Charm Monster
Charm Monster mass
Dominate person
Dominate monster
Control Undead
Create undead
Ottos sphere
Blindness
Bestow Curse
Power word Blind
Symbol of weakness
Feeblemind
Greater command
Suggestion
Suggestion mass
Acid fog
solid fog
halt undead
mind fog?
music of makers
music of the dead
fear
symbol of fear
symbol of persuasion
deep slumber
glitterdust
hypnotic pattern
As fas as I feel looking up stuff...

[SimVerg]

Please name a non-flesh to stone form of crowd control that will routinely hit non-epic heroic surge timers (60 second duration).

There isn't any.

Epic is 30 seconds, so spam irresistable dance might overlap into it occaisionally. Everything else has 3-5 saves in 30 seconds, and on epic that means its not lasting the full duration.

What are you crusading against? the inability to lock level 10 mobs in a dancing ball for a minute? You still can. We don't have any CC that lasts long enough to routinely trip heroic surge.

I don't think you were in the thread when this came up, but Fascinate.

edit: I'm pretty sure half the post above me's listed spells aren't effected by Heroic Surges.

[Junts]

For your regular gaming, no you don't see this. In my gaming, 1+ min cc is common enough. Elite powergamers won't notice much difference, because they have the dps. Bring yourself into an average pug in an average quest with average gear, then you can see real CC.

But to please you:
Prismatic Spray/ray
Fts
Fascinate/enthrall
Control Undead
Blindness
Power word Blind
Feeblemind
Greater command
Suggestion
Suggestion mass
halt undead
music of makers
music of the dead
symbol of persuasion
deep slumber
As fas as I feel looking up stuff...

I'm going to delete all the ones to which heroic surge doesn't apply, or which, even if the mob failed -every- six second save, the affect would wear off before heroic surge takes effect on elite.

I didn't remove feeblemind or deep slumber because I don't know the (new, in feeb's case) durations for either, however, I suspect feeblemind is also not subject to heroic surge, as it's not an immobilization. Similarly for the blindness spells.

It would be useful if you were to read the actual description of what the ability's intended to do; many of the spells listed were listed because their durations were changed (often shortened, for player benefit) entirely separately from heroic surge, which is a 'x cannot be constantly cc'd for more than y consecutive seconds' effect. I'm not even sure it affects charm spells, but it probably does.

A vast majority of the effects you listed are so short even at their maximum possible duration with all saves failed that they cannot invoke a heroic surge as it was initially implemented on Lamannia. On elite, its a 60 second consecutive immobilization; normal and hard, even longer. The number of effects that last that long is exceptionally small.

Heroic surge is not a 'debuffs go 'way in x time' effect. It is specifically a clearing of control-removing debuffs.

This is mostly a player benefit that only inccidiently nerfs a few of the most overused and/or overpowered forms of immobilization, because the player timer is much shorter, and is designed to allow players to escape from that solo trapped in a corner with the air elemental situation. It is no threat to cc-oriented characters.